Perhaps I'm the only one who was kind of relieved to see the Olympic games draw to a close yesterday. For some reason I just found them to be extremely aggravating this year, sucking up all the headlines in the news cycle and featuring endless plaudits for two males who were beating up women in the boxing ring. (Excuse me... I understand we're supposed to call them "women with a Y chromosome" now.) But the curtain had barely fallen when people were already talking about the next summer Olympic Games in 2028. They will be coming to Los Angeles that year and Mayor Karen Bass (D) is already putting some big plans in place. She isn't talking about special celebrations or honorary parades for the athletes, however. No, she will ensure that the Olympic Games are "going green." How does someone make primarily outdoor athletic events more "green?" By eliminating cars, of course. Bass wants to host the first "no-cars games" where everyone will be making their way to and from the Olympic sites on public transportation. What could possibly go wrong? (CBS News)

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Saturday promised that the city was working to expand public transportation to the point that the 2028 Summer Olympics could be a "no-car" Games when they come to town. 

She says that on top of the new transportation, she would encourage businesses to allow employees to work from home during the 17 days that the games were in the area, hopeful to avoid traffic jams. 

Bass was in Paris with other Los Angeles city officials to participate in the closing ceremonies of the 2024 Summer Olympics, where she was given the Olympic flag. 

"As we've seen here in Paris, the Olympics are an opportunity to make transformative change," Bass said while speaking on Saturday.

Keep in mind that this is the Los Angeles public transportation system that we're talking about here. Large parts of it go mostly unused because Californians have historically been part of a thriving car culture. The parts that do see use are notoriously inefficient, dirty, and frequented by criminals. Daily attendance at the Paris games exceeded 300,000 people who showed up to cheer the athletes on in person. Given the population density, the L.A. games could easily exceed that. Does anyone honestly believe that the L.A. public transit system is prepared to absorb that type of load or could even be made ready in four years?

Will the public transit mandate apply to everyone or just the spectators coming to watch? What about the athletes and the trainers? Will they be forced into this mess or will they be able to travel normally so the competitors can get down to their normal training schedules and prepare for their events? If Bass tries to force them all onto buses and subways, I suspect we won't be seeing competitors performing at peak levels.

Los Angeles already knows how to handle the summer Olympic Games, having hosted them twice before. (In 1932 and 1984.) Unlike cities attempting to host the games for the first time, they won't have to go bankrupt building all sorts of new facilities that may wind up collecting dust after the games move on. They already have the Los Angeles Coliseum set up and ready to go, along with other outlying sports facilities. They even have beaches close by where they can hold surfing events. 

The point is that Los Angeles already knows how to do this. And there is a lot more to hosting the games than just the sports events themselves. There are mountains of logistical challenges, including transportation considerations. Why would you mess up a system that's already working? Obviously it's part of a push to "combat the climate crisis" on Bass' part, but she could so easily turn this into a rolling disaster with this sort of scheme. Los Angeles is constantly full of cars and it will be again after the games move on. Eliminating the cars for a week or so isn't going to "save the climate." It would all just be done for show, making hundreds of thousands of people more miserable in the process and ruining their Olympic experience. Somebody, please find a way to tackle this woman and bring her to her senses before she manages to ruin this the same way she's ruined so many other things.